Sunday, June 29, 2014

A New List of Top Retirement Communities

I posted last year about a top retirement communities list by John Burns Real Estate, a respected real estate consulting firm. The post was so popular that I decided I should followup to see if they put out a new most recent list for 2013 (this being 2014 there is no list for this year as yet)--and they did!

If you read that post you know it was a list of 50 of the top performing master communities in the U.S.

Out of the 50, I chose only the over 55 (age-restricted) communities to highlight. I wanted to see how many of our communities (ones listed on our website) were on the list.

I was eager to see the differences from the previous year's list. There were very few. So check the post from last year to see the complete list.

The highlights I noted on the recent list (2013) from the previous list (2012) are as follows:

1)The Villages community in Florida was still #1 and selling is hot!

2) New 55 communities added to the list was small: only one! 2013 was a great year for over 55 communities--highest sales in years--but still there were not a lot of new ones on this list, but the ones on last year's list were still there and selling very well.

The only new community listed for over 55 this year's list:

Rancho Mission Viejo in Southern California was added to this year's list, and most notably Del Webb's community which is already SOLD OUT. Talk about hot!

One other community good for retirement that was new on the list, but not an over 55 community, was:

Lakewood Ranch in Sarasota, Florida.

This community is appealing to seniors.

3) A notable mention is that Del Webb's Nocatee in Ponte Vedra, Florida is hot! Selling fast. This is located near Jacksonville--a very popular area now--employment centers and development!

4) The following communities on our previous years list all made large gains in sales on this year's list:

The Villages in Florida

Nocatee in Ponte Vedra

Summerlin in Sarasota, Fl

Valencia Reserve in Boynton Beach, Fl

Cane Bay in Charleston, SC

The Meadows in Castlerock, Colorado

Terra Vista in Austin, Texas

Verrado (stayed the same) in Buckeye, Arizona

5) All communities I listed on the previous years list (2012) were still on the new list for 2013, but not all made the large gains the above listed communities did (please note that gains in sales may diminish if the community is near sell-out).

1 comment:

I never knew what a retirement community was until now. It is great that you have provided a list of the best retirement communities. It would make it a lot of easier for people who are looking for one.